Guided By Voices (Band)

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Lead singer Bob Pollard drinking next a sign containing a line from the song A Salty Salute, which was a popular drinking song.

Guided by Voices (often abbreviated as GBV) was an extremely prolific lo-fi/indie-rock band from Dayton, Ohio. As an integral part of the American independent rock scene from 1986 until 2004, they turned out a number of albums which showcased their propensity for short, catchy indie tunes.

Over the years the band saw many personnel changes, but always maintained the presence of principal singer/songwriter Robert Pollard, a former schoolteacher. Pollard was an avid rock fan, and Guided by Voices' work always reflected his steadfast devotion to the Beatles, post-British Invasion garage rock, psychedelic, prog-rock, as well as punk and post-punk.

Guided by Voices also garnered much attention for its prolificacy, with a seemingly endless stream of releases. Most songs are in the two-minute range, but many are even shorter; often they end abruptly or are intertwined with odd and homemade sound effects. While Guided by Voices progressed over time from an aspiring bar band, to willfully scuzzy basement obscurantists, to a relatively professional riff-pop machine in the latter half of the 90s, the constants throughout were Pollard's seemingly instinctual grasp of the pop form, his digestion of reams of rock history, and his gift for melodic invention.

Contents

Early History

Formed in Dayton, Ohio in the early 1980s, Guided by Voices began their career as a bar band working the local scene. As lineups and day-jobs shifted, however, Pollard moved the band towards a studio-only orientation. Guided by Voices' recording career began with a stream of self-financed, independent releases such as Sandbox and Same Place The Fly Got Smashed. With only a few hundred copies of each album being pressed, these tended to circulate only among the band members' family and friends.

Lo-Fi Years

It was with the release of the ultra-limited Propeller in 1992, (of which only 500 copies were pressed, each with a unique, handmade cover) that Guided by Voices for the first time gained some recognition outside of their hometown, in part due to gaining fans in popular alternative rock stars Sonic Youth, The Beastie Boys, and The Breeders. New York City and Philadelphia were host to Guided by Voices' return to the live stage (and first shows outside of Ohio) in 1993. At this time, the always-fluid Guided by Voices lineup coalesced around the core of Pollard, guitarists Tobin Sprout, and Mitch Mitchell (not to be confused with Jimi Hendrix's drummer), and drummer Kevin Fennell. Sprout, who had briefly featured in an early-80's version of the band, had re-joined circa Propeller and soon became Pollard's primary musical foil, in addition to contributing several of his own songs to the band's catalog. 1993 also saw the release of Vampire On Titus, as well as the Fast Japanese Spin Cycle and Static Airplane Jive EPs. Over the next year, the band began received national media exposure from sources such as Spin Magazine.

In 1994, after culling both new songs and reams of archival recordings from GbV's history, Pollard delivered the indie landmark Bee Thousand via Scat Records, with a distribution deal through indie label Matador Records. Soon, the band officially signed with Matador, concurrent with Pollard and his bandmates finally retiring from their day-jobs to work in music full-time. The band surprised early audiences accustomed to the generally shambling, lo-fi and collage-like quality of the records with their energetic live show, featuring Pollard's homegrown rock theatrics (comprised of karate-kicks, leaps, and Roger Daltrey-inspired mic-twirling), Mitch Mitchell's windmilling and chain smoking, sometime bassist Greg Demos' striped pants, a never-ending barrage of tunes that all seemed to clock in under 90 seconds, and prodigious alcohol consumption all around.

Their true Matador debut came in 1995 with Alien Lanes, which, despite a five-figure recording allowance, was constructed out of home-recorded snippets on the cheap. The band's underground following continued to grow, with notices coming from mainstream sources such as MTV and Rolling Stone. After sessions for a concept album entitled The Power of Suck were aborted, the band assembled Under the Bushes, Under the Stars out of their first 24-track studio sessions, recorded with Kim Deal and Steve Albini among others, in 1996. However, the strain of heavy touring would ultimately lead to the demise of the "classic lineup", with Sprout deciding to retire from the road in order to focus on raising his first child, as well as a solo career. Sprout and Pollard marked the occasion by releasing simultaneous solo albums on the same day in 1996: Sprout's Carnival Boy and Pollard's Not in My Airforce, with each making a guest appearance on the other's album. Pollard maintained an active, parallel solo and side project career alongside GbV releases for the remainder of that band's existence. These records were primarily self-released, and because GbV alumni were regularly featured, and songs from these albums were frequently included in GbV setlists, they are informally considered to be part of the GbV canon.

The Professional Era

In 1997, Pollard created a new incarnation of Guided by Voices with Cleveland glam rockers Cobra Verde. The following album Mag Earwhig!, combined a new hard-rocking swagger with classic lo-fi fragments and one track, "Jane of the Waking Universe," that featured the classic lineup for one last time. However, after another year of rigorous touring, the "Guided by Verde" lineup split in late 1997 following Pollard's announcement in an interview that he intended to work with other musicians on the next Guided by Voices project.

Cobra Verde's Doug Gillard was tapped for yet another new Guided by Voices lineup in 1998, which also included "classic"-era bassist Greg Demos, former Breeders drummer Jim MacPherson, and eventually, former Amps/Breeders guitarist Nate Farley. Departing from Matador, this lineup (sans Farley) worked with producer Ric Ocasek to create what was intended to be Guided by Voices' major label debut. Initially produced for Capitol Records, Do The Collapse was repeatedly delayed and finally released in mid-1999 on pseudo-indie label TVT. Featuring a slick, heavily processed sound previously foreign to GbV albums, Do the Collapse failed to catch on at radio, and was for the most part greeted with mixed reviews.

Through touring heavily throughout 1999 and 2000, Guided by Voices' live act became legendary, with shows often stretching past the three-hour mark, and populated by an endless stream of new and classic songs, Pollard solo tracks, and impromptu covers of The Who, David Bowie and The Rolling Stones. In addition to multiple swings through the United States and Europe, 2000 saw the band's first and only visits to Australia and Japan. 2000 was capped with the release of the massive Suitcase, a four-disc, 100-song trawl through three decades worth of Pollard's enormous reserve of unreleased material. (A second box set of unreleased songs, titled Suitcase II, was released in October of 2005.)

2001's Isolation Drills, was recorded with Rob Schnapf, who aimed to capture the band's live sound more closely than did Ocasek. Though the album debuted in Billboard's top 200 and received higher critical notices than its predecessor, it did not achieve the sought-after radio breakthrough.

In 2004, Pollard announced he was disbanding Guided by Voices following the release of the Half-Smiles Of The Decomposed LP, and a final farewell tour. According to Pollard:

This feels like the last album for Guided By Voices. I've always said that when I make a record that I'm totally satisfied with as befitting a final album, then that will be it. And this is it.
On November 9, 2004 Guided by Voices performed on the stage of Austin City Limits, broadcast by PBS on January 22, 2005. Their last television appearance was on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on December 2, 2004. They played the single, "Everybody Thinks I'm a Raincloud (When I'm Not Looking)". After a select round of final US shows, Guided by Voices played their final show (spanning four hours and 63 songs) at Metro in Chicago on December 31, 2004.

Though the band has separated, Pollard remains prolific. His website, http://www.robertpollard.net offers updates and tentative future releases. The 26-song From A Compound Eye marked the commencement of Pollard's official solo career in early 2006.

Guided By Voices Day

In 2004, during the band's final tour, many cities around the United States proclaimed a certain day to be "Guided by Voices Day" in that city. Some of them include: